Signing off after battle to help the mentally ill

A MENTAL health campaigner who has just delivered his third petition to Downing Street is stepping down.

Paul Farmer has been battling for improved mental health services for more than a year and collected about 7,000 signatures.

He formed Save Our Berkshire Services (SOBS) and has organised a series of public events to get petitions signed.

He has campaigned tirelessly, writing countless letters to the Evening Post to try to get answers to his concerns over cuts in services run by the Berkshire Healthcare Trust.

But now he says he’s going to take a rest and is stepping down as SOBS organiser.

Mr Farmer, of Wensley Road, Coley Park, began his campaign after the trust revealed it faced overspending of £11.9 million early last year. Although the trust is now on the road to financial recovery, it was not achieved without service cuts and redundancies.

Mr Farmer, a former mental health patient who has friends still using the service, was worried about the effects on community care for patients when the trust announced it would have to make cuts to meet its financial deficit.

His petitioning began with protests against the cuts in services, then moved on to object to plans to change one of the psychiatric wards at Prospect Park Hospital into a community ward providing intermediate care for elderly non-mental health patients too frail to return home after hospital treatment.

Mr Farmer believed vital mental health services in the newly-opened £24 million hospital in Honey End Lane, Tilehurst, were being closed when mental health patients still needed them.

He went to battle again more recently when plans to close Acorn House, a unit at Prospect Park for 11 men with long-term mental illness, were revealed.

However, after an intervention by Martin Salter MP last week, Acorn House has been given a reprieve.

Announcing he was stepping down as SOBS organiser, Mr Farmer, 49, said: “This is a good note to go out on. I am really glad to hear that Berkshire Healthcare Trust has been made to think again about Acorn House.”

On Tuesday last week he delivered his third petition to Downing Street about changing the use of a psychiatric ward to a community care ward.

He has also written to Buckingham Palace on the issue.

He said: “I think I have done enough. The time has come for me to step down.

“There are other people who will be able to carry on.”

But Mr Farmer will not give up his support for other good causes.

Last week, he dyed his beard and hair yellow to raise sponsorship for Duchess of Kent House.

Mr Farmer organised a similar stunt last year to raise money for the hospice in Liebenrood Road, West Reading.

Going Yellow is the theme of the Hospice Care Campaign and Mr Farmer has been collecting cash

for the cause at the Thameside Festival and other weekend events.

Two years ago he auctioned all his Petula Clark albums for the Duchess of Kent House. A lifelong Petula fan, he had a number of autographed albums to sell.

Although he is taking a back seat in the mental health campaign, his regular letters to the editor are expected to continue flooding into the Evening Post.